


Lingering Shadows

by porcine_trigonometry



Series: Dishonored [1]
Category: Dishonored (Video Games)
Genre: Delilah Copperspoon - Freeform, Dunwall (Dishonored), Empire of the Isles (Dishonored), Empress Emily Kaldwin, Gen, High Chaos Corvo Attano, Karnaca (Dishonored), Other, Parent Corvo Attano, Serkonos (Dishonored)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-10
Updated: 2018-11-10
Packaged: 2019-08-21 11:53:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 678
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16575959
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/porcine_trigonometry/pseuds/porcine_trigonometry
Summary: A difficult decision vexes Empress Emily Kaldwin in the wake of her and her father's victory.





	Lingering Shadows

The great flowing shape of a leviathan glided past the thick, rising windows, its enormous bulk blocking out the path of light into the room; in its shadow, a figure hunched over a large desk and the single piece of paper lying on top of it. Emily Kaldwin had stared at the document for hours. In the words lay judgment, fear, hope, and reconciliation. In the words lay the potential prosperity and happiness of an entire city—or its doom. In the words lay everything. Serkonos flailed in the wind, leaderless, adrift. But to simply add the island back to her domains would not be greeted with any great enthusiasm (apart from that of her council).

Corvo, the Bloody Duke, was the best choice for a leader according to the people—he was a native of Karnaca, and a hero, they argued. Besides, he probably wanted to go back home anyway. Emily wasn’t so sure. Her father had displayed a rather unsettling propensity for violence when last he’d been unleashed. She didn’t fully trust his promise of reformation, his promise of change, either.

He promised a great deal, her father.

He’d promised her they’d be together forever as a child. He’d promised he would free her from the clutches of those who held her as a young woman. He’d promised to bring back the days of her long-lost mother, the great and much-deceased Empress.

None of it had come to pass, except one thing: The days of her mother _had_ returned. So had the violence, the poverty, the great upheaval. It’d all returned with frightening ferocity to lay havoc to her already fragile reign.

Emily put down her pen and pushed away from the desk.

Soon, she’d left the Royal Chambers behind her and was walking through the city to the site of the old palace. It was a husk of its former self, little more than a ruin. But some parts still stood relatively untouched by the ravages of time.

Dunwall Tower, or what remained of it near the waterfront, stirred her memories in particular. Twice had her enemies laid siege to it; twice had she and her father failed. She placed her hand on the cold, crumbling stone, damp from the morning mist. A shiver ran down her spine; cold lay a thin and withered hand around her waist.

“Will I ever be free of this place?”

The climb to the top proved no obstacle—she’d done it enough times she could scale the walls in her sleep—but stepping over the threshold, past the shattered windows, proved momentous and gargantuan in effort. It wasn’t the fear of this place that bothered her. It wasn’t the tightness in her chest, or the pangs of guilt that brought a clammy sweat to her palms. It was the knowledge it could happen again, and probably would, no matter how carefully she might tread.

It was the knowledge that her failures lay evident for all to see.

But she couldn’t bury them, she couldn’t hide from it. Because if there was one thing her mother had taught her, it was to own your failures and let other people see you for who you really were, warts and all. Whether they accepted you or not was neither here nor there. So, better to let things lie. Because if you forced your subjects to accept you, it was only out of fear they did so. And that’s how you ended up another Duke Luca Abele.

Emily sighed.

Little remained of the old throne room. Looters and the elements had stripped the sheen off her grandeur. Only the base of the throne remained.

And the hooks for the painting.

She could still hear Delilah’s cries, and the rasping of fingernails as Delilah scratched and clawed against the shrinking fabric of time and space. But Delilah had made her bed—time and again. At some point, Emily thought, you had to stop blaming yourself for things you had no control over, no hand in.

At some point you had to just let go.

**Author's Note:**

> I wanted to explore the aftermath of Emily's victory a little, and how she might be feeling about the loss of her mother and everything else that led her to this point. Not sure how I did, but I'm pretty happy with it.


End file.
